This blog is no longer active due to an accidental deletion of photographs and the creation of my new blog at http://www.cheshercat.com/blog.
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Sunday, July 12, 2009

The Streak

I've just reached my hand in the negative box and out popped Ray Stevens. Anybody remember Ray? He is a multi-talented songwriter, singer, producer, performer, comedian and I'm sure the list goes on.

I shot him in Vancouver and by the looks of the backstage area, it could have been at the Coliseum.

That would be record rep, Monica Netupsky proposing after the show.

Gotta love the Santa suits Ray dressed his reindeer in.

The reason he would have played the 17,500 seat Coliseum was because of his enormous hit The Streak...

How awesome is that video?

It took him almost 30 years to put another song on the charts with a little thing called Osama Yo Mama in 2002. This video has created some heated comments on youtube...

On a more serious side, Ray Stevens is also responsible for the song Everything Is Beautiful which sold 3,000,000 records. I bet even if you were born after the 70s and don't have a clue who Ray Stevens is, you could probably sing the first line of that song with the right melody.

3 comments:

quote: "It took him almost 30 years to put another song on the charts with a little thing called "Osama Yo' Mama" in 2002."

Are you being sarcastic? Ray continued making the Hot 100 pop charts throughout the rest of the '70s: "The Streak" was a hit in 1974 and he followed it with "The Moonlight Special", "Misty", "Indian Love Call", "In The Mood", and "I Need Your Help, Barry Manilow". During that same time period, 1974-1979, he was also placing songs on the country charts. "In The Mood" was credited as The Henhouse Five Plus Too.

On country radio during 1974-1978 he had hits with "Everybody Needs a Rainbow", "Misty", "Indian Love Call", "Young Love", "Honky Tonk Waltz", and "Be Your Own Best Friend".

The way you worded it, it was like he never had a song on the charts in 30 years, which is the farthest from the truth. From 1980 onward he's been associated with country music and has several Gold and Platinum comedy albums to his credit and several high selling home videos as well. His 1984, 1985, and 1987's "Greatest Hits, Volume Two" is Gold. 1987's "Greatest Hits" is Platinum. 1990's "All-Time Greatest Comic Hits" is Gold. 2002's "Osama Yo' Mama" is Gold. Three of his home video projects reached Gold and multi-platinum status. From 1986 through 1994 he was named the Comedian of the Year in an annual fan-voted poll published by Music City News, a now out of print monthly publication. His publishing company also boasts success outside of his own recordings. Elvis Presley's last hit song during his lifetime, "Way Down", from 1977 was published by Ray. Ray was also the publisher of two Sammy Kershaw country hits "Cadillac Style" and "I Can't Reach Her Anymore".

His big song in 1980 was "Shriner's Convention".

"Osama Yo' Mama" from 2002 possibly re-introduced him to the wider pop audience again, but he never really went away for 30 years as you suggest.

During 1991-1993 he headlined his own theater in Branson, Missouri before monotony drove him to quit the daily grind. He did 2 shows a day, 6 days a week during the spring/summer/fall months for 3 consecutive years.

Anyway...I could go on and on as I do in my Ray Stevens blog site but good ol' Ray Stevens has been around and active a lot longer than people realize.

I love the pictures!! I didn't mention that in my earlier comment because it's a given. I like seeing older pictures of Ray when he was younger.

After re-reading my other comment I realize I came across obnoxious but I'm usually on the defensive because of how under-rated Ray really is. Some know of him for a song or two but other than that nobody knows how incredibly talented he is in all facets of the music industry and that's why I have a blog page devoted to him called the "Ray Stevens Music Journey" because I felt that there wasn't many, if any, doing any in-depth talk about Ray Stevens. I feel he's an under-rated genius in the recording studio. He's won his share of awards as I was mentioning in my other comment, so he hasn't gone un-rewarded...but still, even with that, some people will only know of him for "The Streak" and "Everything Is Beautiful" before anything else.

He won 2 Grammy awards and has 11 nominations. His single sales the last time reported was close to 10,000,000. His album sales are a little over 3,000,000 and his home video sales are around 2,000,000.